Nine films will vie for the Best Picture Oscar at the 90th annual Academy Awards ceremony, to be held March 4 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. Guillermo Del Toro’s love letter to the Hollywood horror films of yore, The Shape of Water firmed as favourite to take home the top honour on the back of its 13 nominations.

Other nominees in the race for Best Picture are Dunkirk (8 nominations), Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (7), Darkest Hour (6), Phantom Thread (6), Lady Bird (5), Get Out (4), Call Me By Your Name (4) and The Post (2). Award season contenders that failed to make the Best Picture shortlist include The Florida Project, The Disaster Artist and Mudbound.

A late season surge by Paul Thomas Anderson’s dressmaker drama Phantom Thread (pictured, right), which had trouble finding traction early in the awards race, appears to have scuppered the chances of several films who were once considered ‘sure things’. Both director Steven Spielberg and star Tom Hanks were overlooked for The Post (it’s only other nomination was for perennial Best Actress nominee Meryl Streep, her 21st); actor/director James Franco and his tribute to ‘never-say-die’ filmmaking, The Disaster Artist were shunted, earning just a single nod for Adapted Screenplay.

The Hollywood men’s club that was the Best Cinematography category is no more, with Mudbound DOP Rachel Morrison becoming the first woman to be nominated in the category; it was one of four nominations for director Dee Rees’ slave story and represents the first non-documentary showing for streaming giant Netflix.

Greta Gerwig became the fifth woman to be nominated for Best Director for her coming-of-age drama Lady Bird, while first-time nominees in the major categories include Margot Robbie (Best Actress) and Allison Janney (Best Supporting Actress) for I, Tonya; Christopher Nolan for his direction on Dunkirk; Jordan Peele (Best Director) and Daniel Kaluuya (Best Actor) for Get Out; and legendary French New Wave figure Agnes Varda, who earns here first nomination at the age of 89 for her documentary Faces Places (pictured, below; Varda with Faces Places co-director, JR). While nothing came the way of Hugh Jackman for either Logan or The Greatest Showman, Margot Robbie's Best Actress mention and the nomination of director Derin Seale and star and co-writer Josh Lawson for their short The Eleven O'Clock meant Australian talent gets a look-in once again on the world of film's biggest night.

Spielberg, Hanks and Franco were not the only high-profile talent to go home empty-handed. The blockbuster Wonder Woman, directed by Patty Jenkins, failed to earn a single nomination; also on the no-show list, Battle of The Sexes, for which last year's Academy darling Emma Stone seemed destined for re-recognition; despite seven nominations in total, Three Billboards… director Martin McDonagh missed a Best Director slot (though did earn an Original Screenplay nod); Bret Morgan’s Jane, a profile of the great scientist Jane Goodall, seemed a certainty for the Best Documentary category; scene stealers Tiffany Haddisch (Girls Trip) and Holly Hunter (The Big Sick) in the Supporting Actress race; and, Fatih Akin’s In The Fade, which earned a Golden Globe for Foreign Language film and a Cannes trophy for leading lady, Diane Kruger.